The field of the present invention relates to self-checkout systems for retail establishments or more particularly to a data reading system that enables customers to identify and log selected products by themselves using a portable reading terminal, and to pay for those products by themselves using a self-checkout station that includes a payment-accepting subsystem. In a preferred embodiment, the selected products are identified and logged using a portable terminal to read barcodes printed on the products.
In conventional supermarkets, product selection is performed by the customers, and product checkout is performed by cashiers. Typically, a customer will walk up and down the aisles selecting products to buy and placing the selected products in the shopping basket. Once the customer has finished selecting products, the basket is taken over to a checkout counter. The customer then unloads the selected products from the basket and places them on the checkout counter. Each item is then checked out by a cashier, typically using a barcode scanning system. Finally, each item is bagged, either by the customer, the cashier, or by another supermarket employee.
In this conventional shopping approach, the product selection process and the checkout process are performed serially (i.e., one after the other). As a result, the total time required to complete a shopping trip is the sum of the product selection time and the checkout time. Even under optimum conditions, when there are no queues at the checkout counters and the cashier operates quickly and efficiently, the checkout process can contribute a few minutes to the total shopping time. And when conditions are sub-optimum, (e.g., when there are long checkout queues, when a cashier is slow, and/or when a preceding customer has a problem) the checkout process can significantly extend the total shopping time.
Adding self-checkout stations to conventional checkout stations can reduce checkout queue times without requiring additional manpower, because the customers will be distributed in a larger number of shorter queues. One example of this type of self-checkout system is the U-Scan® Express self-checkout system available from PSC Inc., Webster, N.Y. 14580. With the U-Scan® system, customers scan their selected products by themselves, and then pay for their purchase by themselves using either an automatic cash-receiving system or a magnetic credit/debit card reader.
While using the U-Scan® system does reduce the time spent waiting in queues for checkout by shortening the queues, product selection and checkout are still performed serially.
Another checkout system is the Scanboy™ system, originating from CSE GmbH, Germany. With the Scanboy™ system, upon entering the store, each customer picks up a portable, cordless scanning unit from a dispenser rack and uses this scanning unit to scan the selected products as they are placed in a shopping cart. When the customer has finished selecting products, the customer returns the handheld scanner to the rack. The rack then prints out a receipt for the items that were scanned by the handheld unit. The customer then takes this receipt to a human cashier, who accepts payment for the purchase.
While portable scanners such as the Scanboy™ system can cut total shopping time by reducing the amount of time spent at checkout, portable scanner users may still have to wait in a queue for the human cashier to pay for their purchase. And although the time required to process each customer should be smaller than at conventional scanning checkout stations, the queue time can still be considerable, particularly when a preceding customer has a special problem that requires the cashier's attention.